Praying for Treatment

05.25.09

I’m actually torn on this issue. As it would be typical of my point of view, I should stand outraged at these mothers’ actions and be completely in favor of the ruling and arrest warrant. But I find myself almost indifferent.

Maybe it’s because of our current health care crisis – if you don’t want treatment, fine. So many procedures and tests are done simply to appease overzealously paranoid people on a daily basis, why not just do the opposite for once? Not like that will off-set the amount of unnecessary treatments that we dish out (antibiotics for viruses, anyone?) but if people can have it one way, why can’t they have it the other?

Of course, the issue comes down to the welfare of our children, not free-thinking adults in charge of their own lives. Who is to say that the government has a better notion on how to raise my child than I do? I surely don’t think that’s the case for me personally, but given the disparity of education and intelligence across the board, I can’t say that is the case for everyone.

We approve of the government taking custody of children who are in abusive households or who live with parents who are addicts. Abuse doesn’t always take the form of an action being done upon someone; abuse can be the denial of necessities. And it’s hard to see how not giving a child treatment for a very treatable disease such as diabetes is not an example of a denial of necessities.